BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 445

ENVIRONMENTAL PHYSIOLOGY OF ANIMALS

Spring 2014 (1141)

Instructor (i.e., who to see about lectures)

Julian Christians (julian_christians@sfu.ca)

Office: SSB8101 (on the “bridge” between the South Science Building and the Chemistry part of Shrum)

Office hours: Monday, 11:30-12:30 or by appointment.

TA (i.e., who to see about tutorials)

Rodrigo Solis Sosa; Email: rodrigo_solis@sfu.ca

Office hours: By appointment.

Lectures

MWF 10:30 - 11:20 AQ3153

Course schedule (and powerpoint files of lectures)

Tutorial schedule

Practice midterm questions – midterm 1

Learning objectives for lectures 1-10

Practice midterm questions – midterm 2

Practice final exam questions

Form to fill out if you miss exam/assignment due to illness or other problem

www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/students/pdf/healthcare-statement-general.pdf

Course objectives

Assist students to be aware of and to understand:

• Four basic physiological principles, and be able to illustrate these with examples, and relate new material to these principles.
• The distinction between evolutionary responses (adaptation) and within-individual responses.
• The importance of modern evolutionary approaches to the study of environmental physiology.

• Mechanisms available for response to environmental challenges (including different responses at different time scales).
• General mechanisms frequently involved in a variety of responses
• The variety of environmental challenges influences affecting all organisms at all times, and how different types of challenge may interact.
• Some incredible examples of physiological responses to environmental challenges.

Course outline

• Basic concepts and general principles
• Evolutionary processes
• Oxygen
• Temperature
• Water and ions
• Deep sea

Mark distribution

• Final exam: 40%
• 2 x Midterm exams: 25% each
• Tutorial presentation: 10%

Course schedule

* Powerpoint files will almost always be available before the lecture.

** Readings (both texts are on reserve in library):

W & al = Willmer, P., Stone, G., & Johnston, I. 2005. Environmental Physiology of Animals.  Second Edition. Blackwell. ISBN 1405107243.

M & S = Moyes, CD & Schulte, PM 2006. Principles of animal physiology. Pearson Benjamin Cummings. ISBN 0805353518. 

Check to make sure that you have the correct edition – the reading material should match up with the material on the powerpoints!

*** M & S, Ch. 10 provides a great overview of various topics covered in ‘Oxygen’ section.

**** The material covered in the temperature section is largely drawn from Willmer et al’s Chapters 8, 11.3, 12.3, 13.3, 15.3 and 16. I have rearranged the material substantially, so there is not a simple correspondence between a lecture and a chapter in the text.

Lecture; click for Powerpoint *	Date	Section	Topics	Reading **
1	Mon., Jan. 6	Introduction	General course stuff
2	Wed., Jan. 8	Introduction	Four general principles of physiology	M & S, Ch. 1
3	Fri., Jan. 10	Introduction	Types of environmental changes and challenges; Types of responses
4	Mon., Jan. 13	Evolutionary processes	Processes affecting physiological evolution	W & al, Ch. 1
5	Wed., Jan. 15	Evolutionary processes	Approaches to studying environmental physiology
6	Fri., Jan. 17	Oxygen	Oxygen- the basics; Physical gas laws; respiration	W & al, Ch. 1
7	Mon., Jan. 20	Oxygen	Mechanisms and structures for gas exchange	M & S, Ch. 10 ***
8	Wed., Jan. 22	Oxygen	Ventilation and perfusion of respiratory structures; Control of ventilation	W & al, Ch. 7.1, 7.2
9	Fri., Jan. 24	Oxygen	Respiratory pigments; oxygen equilibrium curves	W & al, Ch. 7.3; Ch. 7.7
10	Mon., Jan. 27	Oxygen	Modulation of oxygen-carrying capacity within an individual	W & al, Ch. 7.5.1
11	Wed., Jan. 29	Oxygen	Modulation of oxygen-carrying capacity- evolutionary adaptations;	W & al, Ch. 7.5.2
12	Fri., Jan. 31	Oxygen	Oxygen storage; hypoxia inducible factors; Water-breathing animals in hypoxic environments
	Mon., Feb. 3	Midterm #1
13	Wed., Feb. 5	Oxygen	Water-breathing animals in hypoxic environments	W & al, Ch. 7.5.3, Ch. 7.5.4
14	Fri., Feb. 7	Oxygen	Air-breathing animals underwater	W & al., Ch. 7.6, 11.4, 12.4, 13.4
	Mon., Feb. 10	Family day, no lecture		W & al., Ch. 11.10.3
	Wed., Feb. 12	Reading break
	Fri., Feb. 14	Reading break
15	Mon., Feb. 17	Oxygen	Diving continued; High altitude
16	Wed., Feb. 19	Temperature	High altitude; Temperature basics, e.g., heat transfer by conduction, convection and radiation
17	Fri., Feb. 21	Temperature	Temperature basics continued; Responses to temperature at the molecular level- responses of enzymes	W & al., Ch. 8 (See **** above)
18	Mon., Feb. 24	Temperature	Responses to temperature at the molecular level – responses of membranes (homeoviscous adaptation)
19	Wed., Feb. 26	Temperature	Responses to temperature at the molecular level – responses of membranes (homeoviscous adaptation); heat shock proteins; Thermoregulation terminology
20	Fri., Feb. 28	Temperature	Heterothermy; endothermy vs. ectothermy; Physiological vs. behavioural thermoregulation; Scaling issues
21	Mon., Mar. 3	Temperature	Keeping warm; Heat distribution/ retention
22	Wed., Mar. 5	Temperature	Freeze tolerance
23	Fri., Mar. 7	Temperature	Freeze avoidance
	Mon., Mar. 10	Midterm # 2
24	Wed., Mar. 12	Temperature	Opting out – hibernation, etc.
25	Fri., Mar. 14	Temperature	Hibernation, continued
26	Mon., Mar. 17	Temperature	Keeping cool
27	Wed., Mar. 19	Water and ions	Importance of osmoregulation
28	Fri., Mar., 21	Water and ions	Osmoregulation between intracellular and extracellular compartments; Epithelia; Osmoregulatory organs – gills
29	Mon., Mar. 24	Water and ions	Osmoregulatory organs – gills (continued); kidneys
30	Wed., Mar. 26	Water and ions	Osmoregulatory organs – kidneys continued, gut and salt glands
31	Fri., Mar. 28	Water and ions	Osmoregulatory organs – respiratory structures
32	Mon., Mar. 31	Water and ions	Osmoregulation in marine, brackish, freshwater and terrestrial environments
33	Wed., Apr. 2	Water and ions	Water conservation in terrestrial environments
34	Fri., Apr. 4	Water and ions	Anhydrobiosis
35	Mon., Apr. 7		Deep sea
36	Wed., Apr. 9		Review

Final exam: Tuesday, April 22, 8:30-11:30 am

Tutorial schedule

Tutorial tips (including evaluation scheme)

Rodrigo’s example presentation

‘Everybody’ means that no one will be presenting the paper; the paper will be discussed by the group.

JEB = Journal of Experimental Biology.

Date	Monday 13:30 - 14:20 AQ2104	Tuesday 12:30 - 13:20 AQ5118	Thursday 9:30 - 10:20 TASC2-8070	Papers (the link takes you to an online version of the paper where you can download a PDF)
Jan. 6-10	No tutorial
Jan. 13-17	Presentation by Rodrigo			How to do a presentation
Jan. 20-24 Phylogenetic analyses	Teresa Wan	Alex Chan	Daniel Jacklin	1. Phylogenetic analysis of birds JEB 2006 209, 466-474
	Nathan Yan	Ivy Chan	Sumeet Ghuman	2. Phylogenetic analysis of butterflies JEB 2007 210, 788-799
Jan. 27-31 Oxygen	Jessica Young	Tamara Babcock	Eve Ho	3. Caterpillar tracheae in hypoxia JEB 2013 216, 2293-2301
	Mavis Shih	Eric Chiang	Sherry Hua	4. Giant squid in low oxygen JEB 2013 216, 359-368
Feb. 3-7 Oxygen	Manpreet Sandhu	Kelly Tucker	Darius Tsui	5. Giant millipede hemocyanin JEB 2013 216, 1616-1623
	Nicole Bannatyne	Landyn Roddick	Areeba Khan	6. Rodent hemoglobin at different altitudes JEB 2013 216, 4264-4271
Feb. 10-14	No presentations –midterm break
Feb. 17-21 Oxygen	Joyce Ma	Sophia Tsai	Katrina Juwono	7. Myoglobin in seals JEB 2013 216, 1793-1798
	Nicolas Tseng	Brooke Wilson	Matthew Hlus	8. Diving in sea lions JEB 2013 216, 3332-3341
Feb. 24-28 Oxygen	Aaron Rai	Lea Lagalagot	Charmene Chaudhry	9. High-altitude diving in otters JEB 2012 215, 256-263
	Nisha Sidhu	Christopher Combe	Annabella Scutaru	10. Deer mice at high and low altitudes JEB 2013 216, 1167-1173
Mar. 3-7 Temperature	Alannah Blouin-Summers	Janis Chan	Bikram Mahil	11. Temperature and oxygen delivery in geese JEB 2013 216, 2172-2175
	Shyanne Visram	Rachel Eden	Andrew Wan	12. Temperature and hemoglobin in billfish JEB 2010 213, 1579-1585
Mar. 10-14 Temperature	Palwinder Thandi	Angela King	Gurtej Sandhu	13. Freeze tolerance in frogs JEB 2013 216, 3461-3473
	Roxanne-Liana Francisca	Nicole Ng	Ramon Dhami	14. Freeze tolerance in insects JEB 2011 214, 848-857
Mar. 17-21 Temperature	Saadia Uraizee	Christine Jenkins	Carlianne Dorman	15. Water loss in hibernating bats JEB 2013 216, 573-577
	Aman Kanwar	Kianna Leung	Bridgette Knowlan	16. Energetics in hibernating bats JEB 2012 215, 2141-2149
Mar. 24-28 Water and ions	Maninder Taggar	Ben Lam	Serrien Serrano Leon	17. Ion pumps in salmon in freshwater JEB 2011 214, 2435-2442
	Alfredo Canas Fuentes	Brian Sekhon	Kelsey Robinson	18. Ion pumps in salmon in seawater JEB 2013 216, 1142-1151
Mar. 31-Apr. 4 Water and ions	Yuka Obayashi	Serena Moore	Jeff Kwok	19. Osmoregulation in bull sharks JEB 2011 214, 2883-2895
	Claudia Piechnik	Rylee Murray	Shaine Arandia	20. Osmoregulation in salmon JEB 2010 213, 368-379